Boris’ Goat

Thomas Sowell relates a fable for our time; the fact that it comes from Russia should be a warning:

An old Russian fable tells of two poor peasants – Boris, who had a goat, and Ivan, who didn’t. One day, Ivan came upon a strange-looking lamp; when he rubbed it, a genie appeared. She told him that she could grant him just one wish, but it could be anything he wanted.

Ivan said, “I want Boris’ goat to die.”

There is a lot of misdirection going on in the political world these days:

For years, using the powers of the Community Reinvestment Act and other regulatory powers, along with threats of legal action, politicians have pressured banks and other lending institutions into lending to people they would not lend to otherwise.

Yet, when all this blows up in our faces and the economy turns down, what is the answer? To have more economic decisions made by politicians, because they choose to say that “deregulation” is the cause of our problems.

No matter what happens, for politicians it is “heads I win and tails you lose.” If we keep listening to them and their media allies, we are all going to keep losing big. Keeping our attention focused on CEO pay – Boris’ goat – is all part of this game. We are all goats if we fall for it.